The Big Sonic Heaven 7 – Shoestrings

The Big Sonic Heaven 7 is 7 questions we ask our favorite bands.
This time we asked Shoestrings…

1. Where are you from/based?
We’re from the northern suburbs of Detroit, MI.

2. Give us a brief history of the band.
Rose: Shoestrings is just the two of us, Mario and Rose. In our college years, we and our friends were heavily into 4AD, and we were playing in a band called “The Hazle Room”. The Hazle Room had a very untrained, eclectic sound, and we tried to emulate bands like Red House Painters, This Mortal Coil, and Unrest with a little Cocteau Twins mixed in. Around that same time, we were starting to listen to more bands from other British labels like Factory, Creation, and Sarah Records. Mario had an 8-track recorder that we would use to record The Hazle Room songs. When we had downtime, he would experiment with song ideas that didn’t quite fit the Hazle Room. This evolved into a side project which we called Shoestrings.

3. What are your influences and/or describe your sound.
Mario: Our sound is a combination of influences of the music we were listening to in our late teens to early 20s. We tend to mix characteristics from a pretty wide variety of bands: from Slowdive and Kitchens of Distinction, to New Order and The Wake, to The Blue Nile and Prefab Sprout.

4. What is your current release? Tell us about it.
After a long hiatus, we’re finally set to release our sophomore album, “Expectations”, on November 5th. We’re very fortunate and grateful to have the support of our labels, Shelflife (North America), Discos De Kirlian (Europe), and Fastcut Records (Japan), who will be co-releasing it. Narratively, “Expectations” is about missed connections and relationships that were just never meant to last. There’s a lot of hindsight and wisdom to be gained from losing someone, getting hurt, and living through that loss. “Expectations” is also about losing that “idea” of someone or something you want to happen, and realizing you have very little control over the outcome.

5. Tell us something funny or shocking about the band.
We never played much as a live band but after the release of our first album, our Japanese label set up a show for us in Tokyo. After the show, we began to pack up our equipment as we had always done previously. As we were finishing, we looked up into the room and saw that a long line of people had formed, and we didn’t know why. When we started to walk off the stage, someone gently ushered us to a table, where they motioned us to sign. The people in line were waiting to meet us and get our autographs! It was probably the most surreal and heartwarming moment of our lives!

6. What’s the best thing about being in a band?
Mario: My favorite part is working on a new song, imagining what it should sound like, and then getting to the point where it ends up sounding different, but much better than previously imagined.
Rose: I really love when we hear from someone out of the blue and they tell us how much a song from our first album means to them or that they still listen to it after all these years. It’s also really rewarding to write lyrics that resonate with people. It helps to know that someone has felt the same things as you, that you’ve stood in their shoes before. 😉

7. What’s next? Are you touring?
We’re looking forward to our full album being officially released on November 5th. We don’t have plans for touring, but maybe we’ll play a few shows in the distant future.

Darren Revell
Big Sonic Heaven Radio

Big Sonic Heaven is a 24/7 Internet radio station dedicated to the ethereal sounds of shoegaze, dream pop, post-punk, trip-hop, etc. Listen to the artists featured on the blog and discover more by downloading the app for iPhone and Android or listen at bigsonicheaven.com.